Best Board Games for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Board games are an amazing way to connect as a family, learn how to be a good sport, develop strategy skills and gain self-confidence.

Hands down, board games are a fabulous educational tool for your little one. As a mom who adores board games herself, here are the Best Board Games for Toddlers and Preschoolers… but your whole family is going to love playing them.

I’m also participating with almost 90 other bloggers to give you gift guide ideas for all ages! Read on below. This post contains affiliate links.

Best Board Games for Toddlers and Preschoolers

We are a family of gamers. From board games to card decks to iPad apps to XBox360, my husband and I play them all. When we had kids, we were a little worried we would miss out on our game nights.

But there are a ton of wonderful board games out there that are perfect for your preschooler while also fun for the rest of us!

Cranium Cariboo Island: Cranium Cariboo is the magical treasure hunt game designed especially for young children. Kids love exploring the golden island of Cariboo, searching for coins to help them unlock the treasure chest. Cariboo reinforces four early-learning fundamentals, letters, numbers, shapes, and colors, and it’s packed with fun. Now comes with a spinning island, magical treasure chest, a search for buried coins, and key. Includes beginner and advanced ways to play.

Hoot Owl Hoot!: Platinum Award and Dr. Toy Best Green Product Award, players help the owls fly back to their nest before the sun comes up. Play a color card and fly to that space. Draw a sun card and you’re one step closer to daylight. Help all the owls get home before the sun rises and everyone wins! Two levels of play allow this game to grow with your child.

Hi Ho Cherry-O: Preschoolers can have so much fun picking fruit to fill their baskets, they don’t even realize they’re developing and practicing math skills, such as counting, addition and subtraction! Choose from two different play options and take turns picking pretend cherries, blueberries, apples and oranges from your tree. When it comes to a fruity fun way to sharpen kids’ math skills, you couldn’t pick a better game!

Wonder Forge Richard Scarry’s Busytown, Eye Found It: Pig Will and Pig Won’t are on a mission to eat all the food on Picnic Island! Using the illustrated, over six-foot long game board, you’ll work as a team to make it to Picnic Island before they eat the food! Work together with other players to find hidden objects like buckets, traffic lights, flags, or ladders! Everyone gets a chance to say, “I Found It!”—the faster you find the hidden objects the faster you’ll move!

ThinkFun Zingo: Zingo! brings fast-paced excitement and learning to the classic game of Bingo. Slide the Zinger to reveal picture tiles, make a match and fill your card to win. Images with printed words and two levels of play make this the perfect game to grow with.

Candy Land: Start down the magical road to sweet surprises! This adorable version of the classic Candyland game features the colored cards and fun illustrations that kids love, with different destinations like Cupcake Commons and the chunky Chocolate Mountains. Choose your cards, move your pawn and let your imagination soar as you make your way to the castle to win!

Sequence for Kids: Even if they can’t read yet, younger children can enjoy playing this great strategy-building game. The Sequence Game for Kids is easy to play yet challenging and exciting. Just play a card from your hand, place a chip on a corresponding game board space and when you have 4 in a row, it’s a “sequence” and you win. But there’s more. Use a unicorn card to place your chip anywhere or a dragon card to remove your opponent’s chip.

Feed the Woozle: An Award Winning Game of Silly Snacks and Mixed Up Moves! Chocolate covered flies and hairy pickles? Yummy! The big mouth Woozle is hungry. Can you feed him 12 silly snacks from the spoon before all the snacks are gone? Play together, work together, and have some monstrous fun! Instructions for play include three different game levels so the fun will grow with your child.

Chutes and Ladders: Climb up and slide down in the exciting game of ups and downs, Chutes and Ladders! You and the character on your pawn can see the square marked 100, but it’s not so easy to get there. If you land on a good deed, you can shimmy up a ladder, but land on the wrong spot and you’ll shoot down a chute! Spin the spinner to see how many spots you’ll move. Will your new spot send you down or move you up, up, up? Slip, slide and see if you can win at Chutes and Ladders!

Bonus! Best Card Games for Toddlers

In addition to the best board games for toddlers, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention some of these card games for toddlers. My boys absolutely adored them when they were toddlers!

Richard Scarry’s Cars and Trucks Game: Counting skills and making comparisons are the central focus of Richard Scarry’s Busytown Cars and Trucks card game. Perfect for home or travel, this game is sure to provide hours of educational entertainment. Game play is simple. Players flip over cards to reveal one of the whimsical vehicles from Busytown. The player with the most passengers wins! However, road hazard and special bonus cards make sure the game remains fun and interesting! With large-size cards perfect for smaller hands, this Busytown Cards and Trucks card game is ideal for children learning to count.

Thinkfun Roll and Play Board Game: Roll & Play is the first game designed specifically for toddlers! Simply toss the big plush cube and identify which colored side faces up. Choose a matching color card and perform the simple activity shown, such as “Make a happy face”, “Moo like a cow” or “Find something blue”. Designed for parent and child to play together, Roll & Play strengthens bonds and builds confidence while encouraging creativity, active play and gross motor skills.

Go Fish! Card Game: Swim with the sharks and lunch with the lobsters! Go Fish is a great way for young kids to learn how to play cards – how to hold them, how to deal, how to read the numbers, how to take turns. The game set includes instructions for a simple game and a challenging game. The art is fun and friendly and very modern and the package makes a great gift!

Spot It: Spot it! is the addictive, feverishly fun matching game for every generation. It comes in more than 20 versions, including Junior versions. The first thing to know about Spot it! is that there is always one, and only one, matching symbol between any two cards. Got it? Now all you need is a sharp eye and a quick hand to play all five party games packed into the grab ‘n’ go tin. Including up to eight players, Spot it! is a cinch to learn, plays fast, and is irresistibly fun for all ages!

Each of our Gift Guides is created & vetted by educators and parents who have TONS of experience playing and working with children. Our goal is to do the research for you so you can spend more time enjoying the holidays!